Monday, December 5, 2016

Magic mushroom chemical psilocybin could be key to treating depression and anxiety caused by cancer

The drug psilocybin in pill form. Two trials have shown a single dose
reduced depression and anxiety caused by cancer and that the effect can
last up to eight months.
Photograph: NYU Langone Medical Center

A single dose of psilocybin, the active ingredient of magic
mushrooms, can lift the anxiety and depression experienced by people
with advanced cancer for six months or even longer, two new studies
show.
Researchers involved in the two trials in the United States say the
results are remarkable. The volunteers had “profoundly meaningful and
spiritual experiences” which made most of them rethink life and death,
ended their despair and brought about lasting improvement in the quality
of their lives.
The results of the research are published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology
together with no less than ten commentaries from leading scientists in
the fields of psychiatry and palliative care, who all back further
research. While the effects of magic mushrooms have been of interest to
psychiatry since the 1950s, the classification of all psychedelics in
the US as schedule 1 drugs in the 1970s, in the wake of the Vietnam war
and the rise of recreational drug use in the hippy counter-culture, has
erected daunting legal and financial obstacles to running trials...https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/dec/01/magic-mushroom-ingredient-psilocybin-can-lift-depression-studies-show